Damage Done
by Twinchy
Summary: At long last Adam fell asleep again, plain exhausted from more than physical labour - and then the dreams came...  Response to the Summer Sizzler Challenge on Raising Hell. Continuation of "Collateral Damage" but can be read independently.


**Damage Done**

**Disclaimer**: I don't own "Dark Angel", sadly, but the guys are such a treat to play with…

**A/N**: My gratitude goes out to my awesome beta _twinchaosblade _who makes sense of my stuff, even if I don't.

**A/N 2**: Response to the Summer Sizzler Challenge "Heat With A Twist" on _Raising Hell_.  
Continuation of my story "Collateral Damage" but can be read independently.

**Prompt**: There must be a… kink – of sorts. Be it an unlikely pairing, a less-than-favorable location, situation, an inopportune moment, exhibitionism, language barriers, etc. No straight-forward encounters, please! Let your imaginations run wild with this one!

oOo

_A good ending for a good day_, Adam thought washing up the dishes. Hard work and decent food; there were worse ways of spending their life. Especially nowadays. As far as he was concerned, he didn't want to be anywhere else. It was a good life.

A picture flashed through his mind, gone too fast to recognize anything. A sting in his palm had Adam open his eyes again, never even knowing when he had closed them. The plate he had been cleaning was shattered, his left hand closed around it like a vice. Sighing, he disposed of the shards and looked at the blood in his palm in disbelieve before wiping it off and finishing with the dishes.

oOo

The soft breeze playing with the curtains of the open window was a welcome contrast to the heat of the day when they would work on the ranch. Adam was tired, his body exhausted in the best of ways; he felt needed, falling into bed and asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

And then the dreams came.

At first it was just another flash of a picture. Someone was looking at him but the person was misty, indistinct and he couldn't make out any details. As quickly as it had come, it was gone again, leaving only a deep ache in his heart. He turned around in his bed, kicking the sheets away, listening to the quiet sounds of the night around him for a while and drifted back to an unusually fitful sleep.

Still hours from dawn, Adam stirred again. This time it wasn't so much a picture but an unfathomable need that dragged him from sweet oblivion. He had no idea where it came from, and it unnerved him. Steely determination set in and he resolutely rolled onto his stomach, arms wrapped around the pillow and ignored it as best he could. After that, sleep eluded him for the rest of the night.

oOo

The following day Adam found himself too busy repairing the roof of the stables to worry about the weird happenings of the previous evening and night. It was only during lunch break when his body had time to relax that his skin started tickling strangely and he got restless.

"Getting up already?" Buddy, the ranch owner called over. "You barely touched your food."

"Not hungry," Adam shrugged. "Besides, hard work never killed anyone."

"The way I see it, you're definitely running the risk of being the first." They laughed companionably.

"No worries, man. I'm just antsy, I need to get something done."

"Hey, knock yourself out. There's always enough to do around here."

Adam smiled warmly at the other men eating at the table and got back to work.

Just when he was taking his first swing with the hammer again, another picture flashed through his mind. This time it was of a man in his fourties maybe, sporting a blond-grey crew cut and wearing a brown leather jacket. He was looking down on Adam's prone form, talking to him but there was no sound above the wild booming of his own heartbeat in his ears and a piercing red light burning into his brains.

The next thing Adam noticed was gravel stinging his left cheek as he lay facedown on the ground. _What the heck was that_? He tried to shake off the stabbing headache and slowly made it to his knees. Suddenly Buddy and the others were at his side pulling him to his feet carefully.

"Man, you gave us a scare falling from the roof like a sack of potatoes. Told you, you are running yourself into the ground."

"I'm fine," Adam protested but almost face-planted again when his legs gave out as a wave of dizziness washed over him. "Maybe you're right and I'm too hard on myself," he finally conceded. "Didn't sleep too well last night."

"Go back to the house and rest for a while," Buddy said. And after a moment of watching Adam sway on his feet, "Or even better yet, I'll take you back myself; see to you getting home safe and sound."

oOo

The curtains were drawn, blocking out the light of the day just like Adam was trying to block out the world as a whole. He was lying on his bed, eyes closed and indecisive about whether to try and remember or try and forget. Something was wrong with him; he felt it in the marrow of his bones. The people he had seen in those flashes, he knew he should know them from somewhere but every time he put his mind to it, they were just outside his peripheral.

At long last Adam fell asleep again, plain exhausted from more than physical labour. A young woman with dark hair appeared in his dreams calling his name, Zack. She reached for him, her feather-light touch on is brow made him feel more at home than anything else could, and he leaned into her soft stroke brushing the back of her hand with his fingers. A needy moan escaped his lips and subconsciously he whispered her name before pulling her hand down to his mouth and planting a chaste kiss into her palm.

When said tender hand was pulled away from him instantly, Adam's eyes flew open to recognize Mary, Buddy's wife, sitting at his bedside holding a damp cloth to wipe his face with. He stared at her in disbelief, then mumbled an embarrassed apology.

"Don't be sorry, Adam," she said kindly. "We all lost loved ones after the Pulse. And we still miss them…"

He nodded, locking eyes with her, unable to speak. Several years older than him and a little on the chubby side, she was still an attractive woman in her own right. When he looked at her now, he thought he might drown in her eyes and a deep desire took a powerful hold of him. Mary's sun bleached, wavy locks framed her tan face perfectly and right then and there, Adam wanted nothing more than to cup her chin with his fingers and taste her moist lips.

Turning from her abruptly, he chocked out "You'd better go," before burying his face in the pillow and fisting his sheets in a white-knuckled grip, panting. This was so not happening! No way in hell was he going to hit on his friend's wife and ruin everything he had left.

Only when he heard the door closing behind her, did he dare roll onto his back again and stare at the ceiling. Who was that beautiful girl from his dreams? Why was he dreaming about her to begin with? And what of this other guy staring him down? It made no sense.

Adam sighed deeply, calmed his breathing and made an effort at finding some much-needed rest. It didn't really surprise him that the pictures troubling his mind came back to haunt him the second he closed his eyes again. The dark haired girl was sitting opposite him in front of a fireplace somewhere. She looked so stunning, it took his breath away and the fire in his belly suddenly rivalled the flames crackling next to them.

He reached out and caressed her cheeks gently, barely touching her velvety skin. The look in her huge eyes was intoxicating as they leant forward, their lips meeting hesitantly at first, and then their deep-seated passion swept them both away. Breathlessly they kissed, each of them fighting for dominance, clinging to each other as if for dear life; and the world around them ceased to exist.

Tugging relentlessly on the hem, she broke their kiss just long enough to pull his shirt off his well-muscled chest and over his head. Adam wasted no time catching her mouth again, her perfect lips parting slightly at the soft touch of his tongue, and he all but ripped the fabric off her body craving the sensation of skin on skin. When she arched into him, his lips moved along the curve of her neck and nibbled down her pulse point. The desperate moan he forced from her went straight to his groin as he mapped out her pliable body with his tongue.

She tangled her long fingers into his blond hair and pulled him back up to her beautiful face. For a moment, they lost themselves in the other's bottomless eyes, the air around them practically sizzling with electricity, before she pushed him flat on his back. He stared up at her slim shape appreciating every part while the firelight bathed her in an incredible glow. The smile she cast him was mind-blowing, and she crawled over his quivering body with cat-like grace, never leaving her pray out of sight.

Straddling him, hovering mere inches above his belly, she dipped the tip of her tongue in and his eyes rolled up into his head, while his hands clawed frantically at the wooden floor trying to find some purchase. She beamed contently, placed her hands on his hips, holding his body firmly in place and licked a wet path up his abdomen, only to blow her hot breath along the damp trail afterwards. He writhed beneath her, a groan forming deep in his throat as she reached his nipple and sucked it into her mouth non-too gently. The mix of pleasure and pain drove him nuts, and Adam carded his fingers through her long hair again and again.

He was too spaced out to consciously feel her moving on to his left side, this time lightly biting and scraping the tender nub with her snow-white teeth. At the same time she ground her jeans-clad buttock in a painfully slow twisting motion against his rock hard erection and, throwing his head back, he came violently, shouting her name.

As he lay there, spent and panting, the sensation of her heartbeat against his chest was ecstasy. He slung his strong arms around her torso intent on holding her until the stars burnt out but no one was there. He found himself alone in his bedroom and his loss was immeasurable.

oOo

"Who are you, dammit?" Adam growled in frustration.

_Hospital_, the thought struck him out of nowhere. Right, when Buddy had come to pick him up from the hospital in Seattle, that's where he had seen her. She had been sitting in one of those uncomfortable chairs reading a magazine. The sad look in her eyes… as if she had just lost someone special, someone dear to her. And he had asked if they happened to know each other…

He shook his head, not quite grasping the whole pattern yet as another part of the unsettling puzzle fell into place. _Zack, she had lost Zack_.

Without warning the door burst open, kicked in by a handful of soldiers storming into the bedroom and grabbing him. Before he even knew what he was doing, Adam fought them off shoving a man all but out the open window and kicking another one half across the room. More were coming for him and he jumped off the bed in order to gain more control of the situation, resuming a fighting stance like it were long-ingrained habit.

Another picture flashed across his mind in the worst possible moment. He saw himself in a forest somewhere, surrounded by armed men in uniforms…

An elbow smashing into the side of his face brought Adam back to reality a second later. The soldiers had taken advantage of his obvious distraction and were holding each of his arms, twisting them brutally behind his back. With a roundhouse kick he sent another two of his attackers flying before someone hit him with a cattle prod and his muscled seized painfully. Three further strikes found Adam convulsing in the soldiers' arms unable to keep fighting.

When he was capable of breathing again, the men had already forced him to his knees and subdued him with handcuffs and manacles around his ankles. They grabbed him cruelly by his biceps and hair and hauled him to his feet and out into the hall.

oOo

As the soldiers dragged him to the front door, Adam suddenly recognized someone of the attackers. Though chained, he gave the men holding him a run for their money in order to get a better look, and his suspicion got confirmed immediately when the guy in the suite smiled at him arrogantly "What did I tell you… in life, you always meet twice."

Adam glared at him. "How's the car?" he hissed.

"Running just fine, you'll see. It's waiting for you outside."

"Is this your way of showing gratitude?" Adam could barely hide his revulsion.

"If not, you'd be dead by now, 599 – along with everyone else in the house." White gave his soldiers a curt nod. "Take him to my car."

"My name is Adam," the young man insisted.

"Don't push your luck, 599. These are actually my good manners and trust me, you don't want to see me shedding them."

The End


End file.
